Review: Prodigy by Marie Lu

age: ya
genre: dystopia
rating: 4/8 tentacles

This novel is the second in a trilogy.  Spoilers for Legend below.


Day and June, after preventing Day's execution, travel to Vegas seeking the Patriots' help. However, the Patriots don't give away anything for free. If Day and June want their assistance, they'll have to play a role in the assassination of the new Elector. When June meets the new leader, she discovers that he may not be the tyrant his father was, and she begins to doubt the necessity of the rebels' plot. As Day and June move forward with the assassination, both become less and less sure of who they can trust, even beginning to doubt each other.

This trust dilemma creates a deliciously ambiguous conflict. With Razor, Patriot leader, on one side, and the new Elector, Anden, on the other, Day and June are divided between destroying the government in a full revolution, or giving the new Elector a chance to steer the existing government in a more positive direction. Which way is the best way? From a reader's perspective, both of these options make sense, and it's easy to empathize with the confusion that Day and June feel, as well as their fear of being manipulated. This representation of the rebels and the ruling authority is refreshingly human, although some of the grey sharpens into black and white as new information is revealed later on.

Although the premise of the plot is intriguing and creates the potential for complexity, its execution leaves much to be desired. In my review of Legend I mentioned the author's tendency to tell rather than show. This continues in Prodigy. The narrative consists of superficial inner monologues that repeat themselves and are overrun with rhetorical questions. Here is the first example I found, flipping through the book:

If Razor thinks June is safest under Thomas's watch, then so be it. But what are they going to do with June once they've got her? What if something goes wrong, and Congress or the courts do something that Razor didn't plan for? How can he be so sure that everything will go smoothly?

There are many more instances of this, and it isn't enjoyable to read. We're told what questions we should be asking instead of being lead to consider these possibilities on our own. There are better ways of creating tension in fiction, like through sensory detail or dialogue or descriptions of the behaviors of the characters. Spelling it out like this is boring for me (and other readers, I imagine) and lazy on the part of the writer.

My other problem with Prodigy (and Legend) is June. Everyone finds her beautiful, she wins every battle she fights, she has flawless logic (she conveniently figures everything out before everyone else), her brain is basically a clock (she can tell you exactly how many minutes and seconds have passed between events), she is THE BEST student ever to attend her military college. She's not a person, she's a fantasy, and I find her incredibly flat and boring. What's the point of making her so robotic-ly perfect? If I wasn't so fond of Day, I don't think I could've made it through these two books and if June was the sole protagonist, I'd have given up long ago.

These problems existed in Legend but seem to be amplified here, like the author is giving in to her weaknesses instead of improving on them. I do love the story. I'm interested in the conflict between the Republic and the Colonies. I love Day's relationship with the people of the Republic and the dramatic irony that comes out of his execution (we know he's alive, the people don't). As I said before, I like the way that Lu deals with trust. And I will read Champion as soon as it's released, but I'm crossing my fingers hoping that Lu will learn and grow as a writer because I'm not satisfied with the level of skill exhibited here.

Review: Sever by Lauren DeStefano

age: YA
genre: post-apocalypse, kind of dystopia?
rating: 3/8 tentacles

Sever is better than Fever, but still doesn't fulfill the potential of the series premise. The pace remains much too slow. Characters spend a lot of time waiting for no real reason. Motivations get forgotten and left behind. The world is only partially described, and much too late.

Spoilers for Wither and Fever below.

When Sever begins, Rhine has recently evaded the clutches of Vaughn and tried to explain to Linden (finally!) the extent of his father's misdeeds. Linden doesn't believer her, perfectly natural--why shouldn't he trust his father, but agrees to help her avoid Vaughn and find her brother. Then, for most of the book, Rhine stays within Vaughn's reach and does very little to track down Rowan. The efforts she does make to find her brother lack urgency, which is strange considering that he's going around blowing up buildings and she thinks that she can stop him. But no worries, she just hangs around and eats nothing but apples.

A big deal is made out of how cars and cell phones are now a rarity, which doesn't make sense to me. If this world contains high tech labs and advanced medical technology, why don't cell phones work? There are still adults around unaffected by the "virus" who know how this stuff functions and could keep the world running. Yes, there could be an explanation for the collapse of the internet and cell phone service, and a half-hearted attempt is made at one just before the book ends, but this leaves me wondering for the entire series why characters don't just do things the easy way. And I can't become invested in their conflicts if the characters seem to be making things unnecessarily difficult for themselves. Forget cell phones, what about landlines? Why can't Rhine call the house where she left Gabriel to see how he's doing? Why doesn't she try to get in touch with Rowan instead of wasting time cleaning for Linden's uncle and then driving across half the country? I know they have phones because Vaughn calls people.

The characters don't come across as vividly as they did in Wither. Cecily is certainly the strongest and stands out in this last installment. Rhine becomes a vague, actionless shell. Linden fades into the background and becomes little more than a flimsy tie linking Rhine to the superficial luxury of her old prison. Her nostalgia for the place that she was so desperate to escape in Wither adds some welcome complexity. However, her conversations with Linden about their relationship disturbed me. He apologizes to her for expecting her affections, or something like that, and Rhine says it's okay, we were married.

What!?

Being kidnapped, imprisoned, and forced into a bond with a stranger is not a real marriage. He is not entitled to expect anything from the slave wives that he picked out of a truck-full of kidnapped girls. And Rhine is suddenly okay with all of this? Because Linden is actually kind of nice? This makes me angry.  Rhine was angry too--what happened?

Sever loses sight of issues originally posed by the series. There's no more talk of the House Governor system, no more freedom and poverty vs. luxury and enslavement, no more determination to survive. I no longer understand Rhine, her relationships with any human beings, or her decision making processes. Rowan needs a slap in the face and a wakeup call. And I still don't understand how this virus/not virus works, how extensive it is, and what the deal is with the outside world. Ultimately, I am confused and dissatisfied. 

Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

age: YA
genre: futuristic, wannabe dystopia
rating: 2/8 tentacles

This is a sequel, there will be Delirium & Pandemonium spoilers.  Don't read the review if you haven't read the first two books.

I really did not like this book. I thought the trilogy was on an upward trajectory, the second book being an improvement on the first, but this fell flat. Most of the characters fail to stand out. They're like ghosts. Cardboard cutouts of people. Nothing happens until about 120 pages into the story. There's a lot of unimpressive description of nature that seems to exist only as filler. There's no real resolution at the end, which sometimes isn't necessary, but there's nothing else to make up for the lack of resolution either--just a little preachy message.

Here is a problem I have with the trilogy as a whole: the premise is never explained. Again, the explanation of love as a disease--who decided this, what are the accepted symptoms, how does the cure actually work, what emotions does it actually block out, what emotions that stem from love are tangentially blocked out--all this doesn't need to be clarified in scientific terms, but I need to feel that the author knows all these things, that she knows where she's going with the story. I need to trust in her authority. And the way the author can gain my trust is by relaying this explanation through the characters, through the ways they think and feel and interact.

Did anyone else notice that there is absolutely no difference between the thoughts and behaviors of the cured and the invalids? Sure, the only cured whose POV we get is Hana's and she has doubts regarding the success of her cure. But if the difference between the cured and the invalids is the basis for the main conflict of the trilogy, shouldn't we be able to see the difference? Maybe it just went over my head. Hana tells us her thoughts are clearer now. That's it. That's all the distinction we get.

I'm not even sure what "love" means in the context of this trilogy. Does the word refer only to romantic love? Lust? If I recall correctly, the love between a mother and her children is also meant to be extinguished by the cure, according to Delirium. What about self-love? Wouldn't a lust for power come out of self-love? Unless the person had this robotic, Darwinian urge to be Numero Uno. And jealousy? And pride? Do those come out of a corrupted love? Or does the cure simply kill the ability to form bonds with other people, with little effect on emotions of passion? It's all so muddied. After three books, I'm still not sure.